F Mixolydian on the Flamenco Guitar

Where F Mixolydian lies on the fretboard of a guitar tuned EADGBE, and how a flamenco passage lands it on the count.

F Mixolydian runs 7 notes to the octave, laid across an EADGBE fretboard with every F marked — the pitch a phrase keeps coming home to.

Major with a flatted 7th (b7) — bright and bluesy. The dominant chord turned into a tonal center with a rock/folk edge.

Heard in: "Sweet Home Chicago", "Norwegian Wood" (Beatles), Celtic and folk music — anywhere a major sound needs a darker, looser edge.

On the flamenco guitar a scale is the raw material of the falseta — a composed melodic passage the guitarist drops between sung verses — and of the runs a toque answers the cante with.

Whatever notes a passage runs through, it is measured in compás: it sets off and comes to rest where the count of the palo allows, so every scale here is finally heard against a cycle of accents.